Tempor
by trufflemores
Summary: 1.01. "Auditory function is the last to deteriorate." Barry is in a coma for nine months; these are his thoughts.


**Author's Notes:** FORMAT: DAY:HOUR:MIN, e.g. 001:10:45 is the first day, 10:45 AM. Enjoy!

00:00:45.

 _Why can't I move?_

 _Did I break my neck?_ _Wiggle your toes._ _No?_ _Why can't I move?_

 _I thought death was supposed to be quick._

00:01:12.

 _It's so quiet here._ _Quiet enough that I can hear Iris crying._

 _Iris, what's wrong?_

00:02:30.

 _Iris is gone._

 _I miss her already._

00:04:52.

 _It's late._ _Joe should be asleep._ _He's talking to me instead._ _"_ _You're gonna be all right," he says._

 _He's crying. I_ _can't see it, but I can hear it._

 _I wanna be all right, Joe._

00:09:39.

 _They're starting to think I might never wake up._

 _I've never been this scared._

00:11:47.

 _People pay a lot of money to float in sensory deprivation tanks._ _Like acupuncture: scary on the surface, super Zen underneath._ _I've never tried it, and I can still feel, but I can't respond to anything._ _I try to move my hands, to scrunch up my face, to make a sound, but nothing happens._ _Someone replaces an IV; I only notice because Joe wakes up._ _It doesn't hurt._ _Maybe it should._

 _Maybe I'm just too far gone to feel it anymore._

00:14:22.

 _As of right now, my dying words are, 'Bye, Felicity.'_

00:20:01.

 _There is no sense of time._ _It could be morning, it could be night, but I am here, and here is stuck interminably at zero._

 _Until I regain control, I'm here forever._

01:04:36.

 _Forever is a fucking long time._

03:00:14.

 _Someone says "three days" and my blood runs cold._

 _That's scientifically impossible – even cold-blooded animals are warm, they're just dependent on their surroundings for that warmth – but falling asleep forever seemed impossible yesterday._

 _Scratch that._ _"_ _Three days ago."_

04:10:20.

 _Is it possible to die of boredom?_

04:22:07.

 _Iris West is a good person._

 _She seems to understand my struggle, because she reads aloud a journalism paper this time, and it's drop-dead boring, and I love her for it._

05:00:12.

 _She's asleep right next to me and I can't even feel it._

 _I want to._

12:08:56.

 _Doze, and I'm being told it's Sunday._

 _Already?_ _They say I got here on Tuesday._ _I don't know which one._ _Maybe a week ago._ _Maybe ten years._

 _If I could just open my eyes, the passage of time would make more sense._

12:12:04.

 _A lot of blind people have sleeping disorders._ _Their circadian rhythms aren't synced with their environment: they receive no visual reminders to stay awake or go to sleep._

 _I can't see a thing, yet I feel like I could sleep for centuries._

16:03:43.

 _Maybe I already have._

19:20:45.

 _Time seesaws here._ _It slides backwards before lunging forward, projecting back to "before" and fantasizing about "after."_ _Whenever Iris or Joe mentions the date I flinch, but the movement doesn't register beyond my own mind._ _Nothing registers._

 _It's like wearing a spacesuit, trying to communicate with a crew locked behind a soundproof door._ _Nothing wants to work right._

21:23:57.

 _And absolutely no one can hear me._

30:19:01.

 _Sometimes I wish_ I _couldn't hear me._ _Iris provides frequent intermissions._ _They help._ _There are strangers here, too, people I've never met before._

 _There have been a lot of strangers lately, but it's getting quieter._

33:02:45.

 _And quieter._

37:18:02.

 _And quieter._

42:01:39.

 _'_ _Thawne' is a familiar name to me, like an exotic fruit or third-grade teacher._ _I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it._

 _I can't see 'Thawne,' and I can't put a face to a name, and it quickly disappears._ _Iris' introduction glides hydrophobically over my back._

45:05:31.

 _I dream about the strangest people talking to me._ _I know they're dreams because Dr. Wells would never spare a moment of his time for a CSI who died – and this I know, I must be; why else would I be this stuck?_

 _I didn't know you could dream when you were dead, but I also didn't realize 'dead' was this disruptive._

 _I miss being alive._

47:19:24.

 _Coffee._ _Rain._ _The beach._ _My stash of paperclips._ _Joe singing when he thinks no one is listening._ _Iris' perfume._ _The sound of thunder closing in._ _A comfy chair that sinks when I sit in it._ _The crackle of a fresh newspaper._ _Riding a bike._ _A mown lawn._ _Bowling a strike._ _Eclipses._ _Running until my lungs hurt._ _A worn-out, comfortable tee._ _A call from my mom._ _The precinct at four AM._

48:04:00.

 _Four AM is an emotion, not a time._

 _It's eye-stinging fatigue and stumbling exhaustion._ _A place in time where there are a lot of empty spaces._ _No traffic, no congestion._ _Even the streetlights sag._

 _I've only been at the precinct this early once._ _I didn't want to remember it then._

 _I miss it now, because as awful as that night was, Joe taking me home was one of the best things that ever happened to me._

60:20:03.

 _I was gone for a long time._

 _I know this because Iris picks up a conversational thread that unravels beautifully and utterly mysteriously before me._ _I'm starting to fall behind._

 _It sinks like a stone in my stomach._ _I'm starting to fall behind…_

72:19:23.

 _How long must I haunt my family?_ _Haven't they suffered enough?_

 _Or is death really this hollow, this vague, this disquieting place in-between?_

80:15:17.

 _Every college kid who has taken a philosophy course has come across it._ _"_ _Plato's allegory of the cave."_

 _Imagine spending your entire life, chained up with nothing to look at but a blank wall._ _The one thing to keep you from going crazy are the shadows that pass on it._ _They become your whole world._

 _You never get to see the people and animals and things that create them, just their reflections._ _You miss out on a lot._

 _I really hate this cave._

98:00:01.

 _Happy birthday, Joe._

 _I'm sorry I couldn't wake up for it._

101:00:10.

 _I've tried everything._

 _Clicking, whistling, snapping my fingers._ _Gibberish, Shakespeare, sotto voce._ _Every Dr. Seuss rhyme I can think of, like one holds the answer to breaking the silence._ _I yell until my lungs are sore._

 _My body doesn't even twitch._

101:23:02.

 _You're off to great places!_

 _Today is your day!_

 _Your mountain is waiting_

 _Go get on your way!_

102:01:04.

 _Damn._

118:21:46.

 _Hair stops growing after death, so my dreams of growing a long white Gandalfian beard are promptly quashed by the laws of biology, but I like to dream that I will wake up stronger._

124:10:28.

 _Happy four-month anniversary._

 _Time is an illusion._

143:02:45.

 _I should have learned how to play the fiddle._ _Legend has it that you can duel the devil and acquire one wish if you beat him at it._

143:23:18.

 _Hey diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._

144:01:16.

 _It's surprisingly contentious where "Hey Diddle Diddle" originated._ _Easy enough to place the ontological origin, but much, much more challenging to decipher its meaning._ _Some think it's a reference to constellations; others suggest it's a bastardization of ancient Greek writings; and still others think it refers to cultish religious chants._

 _One way or another, it's stuck in my goddamn head._

159:20:07.

 _Tell me a story, Iris._

 _Tell me about your day, your week, your month, your year._

 _God I hope it hasn't been a year._

172:10:15.

 _Someone plays the Star Wars theme, very loudly, and I'd cry if I could._

 _Another someone shouts at the first someone to turn it_ down _, but it's festive and maybe the happiest this place has seemed in centuries._

 _Will people still remember Star Wars in fifty, a hundred, five hundred years?_

172:20:34.

 _Will_ I?

198:03:56.

 _I bribed Iris to watch all six movies with me._

 _If the rumors are true, there's a seventh in the works._

 _I hope Star Wars guy plays it, full volume, for days._

200:12:30.

 _It's getting hard to hear people._

 _At first I think my ears are out of practice when Iris talks to me for the first time in God-only-knows how long._ _Her voice is fuzzy and distant, bubbling with excitement but also a bit sober, too, because I am a reminder of something gone._ _I can't hear you, I tell her, over and over, as tears dissolve unshed on my face._ _I can't hear you._

 _I really, really don't want to lose my hearing, too._

204:15:04.

 _Helen Keller was deaf and blind from birth._

 _How she learned to talk to our cold, dark world amazes me._ _Without my eyes and ears, I feel a paralyzing stillness, like reality has vanished from underneath me._

 _I take it back._ _I'm not ready to die yet._

215:03:42.

 _I'm in love with you, Iris, and I have been since we were kids._ _I was in love with you before I knew what the word 'love' meant._

 _I just never worked up the courage to tell you._

220:13:09.

 _Please, please give me the opportunity to try again._

234:14:12.

 _"_ _Heartbreakers gonna break-break-break-break-break and the dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah baby I'm just gonna dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, shake it off, shake it off!"_

 _I love this guy._

238:19:09.

 _Music gives me a way of passing time._ _I wish we lived to the sound of music._

 _Iris loves that movie._ _We'd watch it on the couch together and I would always, without fail, fall asleep._

 _"_ _I'd watch it with you now," I want to tell her, but she hasn't been here in a while._

241:02:48.

 _Where are you, Iris West?_

249:18:29.

 _Where am I?_

255:12:04.

 _He's still playing music._ _I can't hear it anymore._

260:03:29.

 _The reaper visits me._

 _I know it because I can_ feel _it, and the hairs on my arms rise of their own accord, and it is the first and only sign of life to touch me since I feel asleep a thousand years ago._

 _I can't hear what he's saying, but I can feel him._ _A hand hovers over my heart._ _For a moment, I think he'll rip it out._

 _Then he's gone._

 _I don't rest easy for a while._

269:22:59.

 _Humans can survive almost three weeks without food._

 _The idea of food is still just as tasty as I remember._ _I guess it takes more than death to wash out the memory of flavors._

274:02:08.

 _It's very late, and I can't see her, or hear her, or feel her presence, but when her hand brushes mine, I feel the spark._

275:00:02.

 _Thunder growls at the back of my consciousness, insisting one-word, wake-up, over and over._ _Wake-up, wake-up, wake-up._

278:13:19.

 _Let there be_ _ **light,**_ _shallow shadows, people, People?_ _Sound, sensation, ow, YES, deep breath_ , _loud_ , can't-read-my-can't-read-my-no-he-can't-read-my-poker-face

I rise from the dead with a gasp. "Where am I?"

000:00:23.

I hug Iris for the first time in 278 days.

It's better than I remembered.


End file.
